"Initial reports suggested two people were firing at each other. However, sources said investigators now believe the Secret Service agent was the only shooter."
According to that NYP article someone was a few holes ahead of trump with an ak47, secret service shot at them and they fled, dropping the gun. The suspect was then arrested in a traffic stop a 50 minute drive away from the golf course. I'll believe it when I hear it from a credible source.
Last report I saw was the suspect left an "AK47 type rifle" with a scope, at a vantage point 300-500 yards from Trump's location at the time.
Now granted journalists don't tend to know a damn thing about firearms, or ask good follow up questions so who knows, it could be a DMR type of rifle like an SVD that the uninformed would mistake for an AK.
But if it's just a standard 7.62 x 39 AK pattern rifle, scoped or not, that's ... very optimistic at that range.
Unless the NYT has new information, the gunshots were only reported as being 'in the vicinity.' This could mean completely outside of Mar-a-Lago and just a coincidence.
Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed that a shooting took place “on the grounds” of the Trump International Golf Course West Palm Beach while Mr. Trump was present. A “person of interest” has been detained, she said.
'the shooting' is the Secret Service agent doing their job. The story going the rounds is that the agent was doing a sweep ahead of trump, saw a guy with something that looked suspicious and decided to fire on the guy. Whatever happened between recognizing that things were hinky and the shots... well. that's the first question.
my cursory search on FL carry laws suggest that unless the guy was coming back from hunting, fishing or target shooting, then he's not allowed to open carry (there may be some other exceptions.) It's dubious that's what he was doing... In any case, dude in a public, not-controlled space, not being an active shooter doesn't generally allow for lethal force.
It's entirely possible the agent walked up and chatted with him, or tried to, and the guy either bolted or gave him reason to justify lethal force.
But the biggest question of all: why would a guy planning to kill Trump walk around in plain sight waiting for Trump to show up?
Like. I'm guessing you could see the, uhm, idiocy in that one.
Let's not speculate until we get more info. Republicans already made their conclusions, but we got to be better then that. Just be ready for some kind of retaliation